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 Gaza, where 2 million people live, has reported more than 53,000
coronavirus cases and 538 deaths.
The shipment, sent by the Palestinian Authority from the occupied
West Bank, included 2,000 doses of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine,
enough to inoculate 1,000 people in a two-shot regimen.
"We will use the doses to vaccinate patients who had organ
transplants and those who suffer kidney failure," Majdi Dhair, a
Gaza health ministry official, told Reuters.
"Medical personnel will not be vaccinated this time as the shipment
is not enough," Dhair said.
Shipment of the vaccine, via Israel, to Gaza had drawn criticism
from right-wing Israeli politicians.
They had called on their government to make the transfer conditional
on the release of two Israeli civilians believed held captive by the
militant group and the return of the remains of two Israeli soldiers
killed in the 2014 Gaza war.
But Israel, leading the world in the speed of its own vaccination
programme, has also come under pressure from rights groups to do
more to ensure vaccines reach Palestinians in territory it captured
in the 1967 Middle East war.
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 Palestinian officials, blaming
Israel, said a transfer planned for Monday had
been cancelled.
Officials in the Palestinian Authority said they
submitted the vaccine transfer request to
Israeli defence authorities soon after receiving
an initial shipment of 10,000 Russian doses in
the West Bank on Feb. 4.
The delay highlights the challenges Palestinians
face inoculating citizens across the West Bank
and Gaza - two geographically-divided areas
which are home to 5.2 million Palestinians.
Israel controls all entry and exit points to the
West Bank and most of the coastal and land
boundaries of the Gaza Strip, an enclave that
Israeli troops and settlers left in 2005.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and
Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem, Writing by Jeffrey
Heller; Editing by Ana Nicolaci da Costa)
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